Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)

September 18, 1987

Film: 'Amazon Women'

By Janet Maslin

Published: September 18, 1987

LEAD: WHY tamper with perfection? The tinny, low-budget science-fiction epics that turn up on late-night television have the kind of innocence and silliness that don't grow on trees, so the idea of duplicating these classics seems doomed from the very start. But the makers of ''Amazon Women on the Moon,'' which opens today at Loews New York Twin and other theaters, knew no fear.

WHY tamper with perfection? The tinny, low-budget science-fiction epics that turn up on late-night television have the kind of innocence and silliness that don't grow on trees, so the idea of duplicating these classics seems doomed from the very start. But the makers of ''Amazon Women on the Moon,'' which opens today at Loews New York Twin and other theaters, knew no fear. Nor did they know much about taste, concentration, restraint or any of the other virtues that might have bogged them down.

The result: an anarchic, often hilarious adventure in dial-spinning, a collection of brief skits and wacko parodies that are sometimes quite clever, though they're just as often happily sophomoric, too. As an added bonus, there's the film-within-a-film of the title, complete with intrepid space commander (Steve Forrest), spacesuit-wearing pet monkey and dopey assistant (Joey Travolta, who's especially funny) who just can't wait to reach the moon and tear off a hunk of that green cheese.

To the extent that this comic anthology has any structure at all, it's set up as a late-night television showing of ''Amazon Women on the Moon,'' with the film clips regularly interrupted by authentic-looking skips, scratches, burns and tears. Sometimes this leads to a commercial, sometimes a separate skit, sometimes back to the feature itself, but there's really no telling where ''Amazon Women'' is going, and that's part of the fun. There are 20 separate skits here, made by five different directors, and if their quality varies greatly at least the pace is quick. The least inspired sketches quickly give way to ones that are better.

Among the high points are a look at the Son of the Invisible Man, who, as played by Ed Begley Jr., is something of an embarrassment to his neighbors. He thinks he's perfected his father's magic formula, and no one has the heart to tell him otherwise. So the patrons at the local bar sit patiently while he - naked, Invisible Man-style - rearranges the checkers on the checkerboards and cackles madly at his own wit. Then there's George (Matt Adler), the bashful teen-ager who tries to purchase a certain brand of condom from his kindly neighborhood druggist (played to the hilt by Ralph Bellamy), and finds out he's gotten much more than he's bargained for. Every young man's worst nightmare comes true as he finds his face on a billboard and his praises sung by a marching band. Another recurring presence in the film is Don (No Soul) Simmons (David Alan Grier), a man with a congenital defect that makes him sing songs like ''Blame It on the Bossa Nova'' and ''Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree.''

The film's five directors show off very different predilections, the most noticeable being Joe Dante's taste for the macabre. Among Mr. Dante's contributions are a television show postulating wild premises, like the idea that Jack the Ripper may also have been the Loch Ness monster (Mr. Dante illustrates this with a giant sea serpent in a bowler hat and necktie, giving the most awful leer to a London prostitute). There is also a two-man team of critics who devote their show to analyzing the life of one particular viewer, Harvey Pitnik, and deem it worthless. This gives Harvey a fatal heart attack and leads into another of Mr. Dante's skits, with the Pitnik funeral staged as a celebrity roast.

The film's best sight gags come from Robert K. Weiss, who deserves kudos for the inspired idiocy of his ''Amazon Women'' segments and for bits like ''Silly Pate,'' advertising an elegant snack that can also be used to copy comic strips. John Landis does best with the Don Simmons scenes and least well with an extended, unfunny episode about a man who is attacked by his furniture and appliances. This is the film's inauspicious beginning sequence, but it compensates with a final sketch - after the closing credits, so stick around - in which Carrie Fisher plays an innocent from the Midwest who is corrupted by New York ways. ''Which one is Cole Porter?'' she asks sweetly, surrounded by middle-aged gangsters in their underclothes.
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET - AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, directed by Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis and Robert K. Weiss; screenplay by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland; director of photography, Daniel Pearl; edited by Bert Lovitt, Marshall Harvey and Malcolm Campbell; production designer, Ivo Cristante; produced by Mr. Weiss; released by Universal Pictures. At Movieland, Broadway at 47th Street; New York Twin, Second Avenue and 66th Street; 34th Street Showplace, between Second and Third Avenues.; 84th Street Six, at Broadway. Running time: 85 minutes. This film is rated R.
Brenda...Michelle Pfeiffer
Captain Nelson...Steve Forrest
Butch...Joey Travolta
Don Simmons...David Alan Grier
Karen...Rosanna Arquette
Jerry...Steven Guttenberg
Harvey Pitnik...Archie Hahn
Griffin...Ed Begley Jr.
George...Matt Adler
Mr. Gower...Ralph Bellamy
Mary Brown...Carrie Fisher